lessons, completed by eleven, he would go to the kitchen for a thin piece of cheese, a biscuit and two French plums —provision enough for a jolly-boat at least — and eat it in some imaginative way; then, armed to the teeth with gun, pistols,and sword, he would begin the serious climbing of the morning, encountering by the way innumerable slavers, Indians,pirates, leopards, and bears. He was seldom seen at that hour of the day without a cutlass in his teeth (like Dick Needham)amid the rapid explosion of copper caps. And many were the gardeners he brought down with yellow peas shot out of his littlegun. He lived a life of the most violent action.

“Jon,” said his father to his mother, under the oak tree, “is terrible. I’m afraid he’s going to turn out a sailor, orsomething hopeless. Do you see any sign of his appreciating beauty?”

“Not the faintest.”

“Well, thank heaven he’s no turn for wheels or engines! I can bear anything but that. But I wish he’d take more interestin Nature.”

“He’s imaginative, Jolyon.”

“Yes, in a sanguinary way. Does he love anyone just now?”

“No; only everyone. There never was anyone born more loving or more lovable than Jon.”

“Being your boy, Irene.”

At this moment little Jon, lying along a branch high above them, brought them down with two peas; but that fragment oftalk lodged, thick, in his small gizzard. Loving, lovable, imaginative, sanguinary!

The leaves also were thick by now, and it was time for his birthday, which, occurring every year on the twelfth of May,was always memorable for his chosen dinner of sweetbread, mushrooms, macaroons, and ginger beer.

Between that eighth birthday, however, and the afternoon when he stood in the July radiance at the turning of thestairway, several important things had happened.

“Da,” worn out by washing his knees, or moved by that mysterious instinct which forces even nurses to desert their